Memoria
by whenifelltoearth
Summary: The chronicles of Vivi Orunitia from birth to death.


-1Yeah, this is my first fan-fic…Yada yada, you know the details, so let's get on with the show! In this version of what happens to Vivi later on, he has not had any children(not yet, mind you) and it will take you thru all stages of his life. I hope you enjoy the story of this little mage that is always pondering, pondering.

_If you hate the taste of wine_

_Why do you drink it 'til your blind_

_And if you swear that there's no truth, and who cares_

_How come you say it like you're right_

_Why are you scared to dream of God_

_When it's salvation that you want_

_You see stars that clear have been dead for years_

_But the idea just lives on_

_In our wheels that roll around_

_As we move over the ground_

_And all day it seems we've been in between a past and future town_

_We are nowhere, and it's now  
We are nowhere, and it's now  
You took a ten-minute dream in the passengers seat  
While the world it was flying by  
I haven't been gone very long  
But it feels like a lifetime  
_

_I've been sleeping so strange at night  
Side effects they don't advertise  
I've been sleeping so strange  
With a head full of pesticide  
_

_I got no plans and too much time  
I feel to restless to unwind  
I'm always lost in thought  
As I walk a block to my favorite neon sign  
Where the waitress looks concerned  
But she never says a word  
Just turns the jukebox on  
And we hum along  
And I smile back at her  
_

_And my friend comes after work  
When the features start to blur  
She says these bars are filled with things that kill  
And you probably should have learned  
_

_Did you forget that yellow bird?  
How could you forget that yellow bird? _

She took a small silver wreathe and pinned it onto me  
She said this one will bring you love  
I don't know if it's true but I keep it for good luck

_--Bright Eyes, We Are Nowhere, And It's Now_

"Hey, Vivi?"

"Yeah, Eiko?"

"Do you remember being born? "

It had been long since their incredible journey had ended. Like two children out of an idealistic Victorian postcard, the black mage and little summoner girl sat side by side on the deck by the lake.. The ole' fishing hole, they called it… A playful excursion had led them to discover their secret place in back of Alexandria Castle; just an old, collapsing bridge and a section of moat that had been choked off by cattails. Trees with hanging, tendril like foliage that looked as if they were carrying some great, sorrowful burden that made their branches droop overhung the water, so still in contrast to it's steadily rushing parent that encircled the stone walls, carrying people to and from the castle, it's resolutely immobile master.

Both of them had become close friends, as many children do when they are around each other a lot and have no one else to really talk to. In truth, they should have been inside with their comrades with whom they had shared so many fantastic adventures with, attending the wedding party with all it's festivities and good food. But neither had any real interest in the affairs of the adults, not even Eiko with Zindane, who had at last given up any real hope of winning his love. He was never that good-looking anyway, she had decided once and for all , red-eyed and teary at the news of his betrothal to her cousin. She would not come visit Alexadnria for quite some time, until she got wind that Vivi was visiting. A lonely child, she adopted him as her new side-kick quicker than Vivi could accept the fact that someone was treating him, finally, like a normal kid.

And so with Eiko dragging Vivi by the little gloved hand, protesting though he was about it being dark outside and how it would probably hurt Dagger's feelings if they weren't at the party, she coaxed him over to their secret spot where she knew they could catch fireflies in little jars taken from the Royal Kitchens.

Vivi refused to catch any. He just watched.

"It's not fair to lock them away like that!" he had whined despairingly.

But that was Vivi- content only to observe. He cupped one in his hand, staring at the little ember that did not burn a hole thru his palm, then let it free to dance lines of fire in the cool night air. Vivi begged Eiko to let them go, shouting, "Oh no, their lights are going out! Let em' go, Eiko, please!" He became so upset that she did release her pretty, blinking captives, if not a little reluctantly.

"You're such a worry-wart," teased the violet-haired girl, feeling a bit disappointed. "Fireflies blink on and off like little lamps, that's how they are, Vivi."

"I just don't wanna see anymore lights go out… Not ever, ever again," Vivi only replied, but he did so solemnly. Eiko wasn't quite sure what he mean't by that.

They both sat down then, legs swinging off the deck companionably, happy to gaze up at the universe above them in childish wonder. For a while, all was blissfully quiet, until Eiko started thinking out loud. Not that Vivi minded. He always liked to hear his new friend chatter on about what she thought and how she felt about practically everything, as if it were her sacred duty to put in her two cents. In fact, he had never met anybody that talked so much in his short but adventurous life, (perhaps a little too adventurous for his own bashful tastes) but that was fine, because Vivi didn't ever really know the right things to say.

Eiko stared off into the distance. Some saggitarian archer had fired a shooting star from his bow. It ripped a burning arc thru the inky fabric of the night, be speckled with heavenly bodies, then plummetted like a stone set aflame into the empty bowl of space.

"I wonder where we go when we die, Vivi. Do you think we go to Paradise like they say in the Old Book?"

"Old Book?"

She looked to him then, perplexed and shocked, realizing that there was still so much her strange companion did not know.

"Yeah, ya know, with the Goddess and the story with the snake and the fruit? And Paradise, the place we're supposed to go when we die if we we're nice people?"

"Oh. I-I've heard of something like that. It sounds like a pretty place," Vivi said softly, wondering if he was nice enough to go somewhere like that. He was a Black Mage, after all. An instrument of destruction and death.

No, not him. He knew in his little black mage's heart that he was no killer, no mindless doll. But the thought still haunted him like the ghost of a ghost, whispering maliciously in his ear that he was bad, that everyone was afraid of him… The boy blinked, trying to forget.

"I wonder about my mother and father and my grandpa, too. I wonder if they are up there…"

Vivi sat straight up and glanced at Eiko hopefully.

"D-do you think… Do y-you think that my Grandpa is up there, too?"

"Your Grandpa? But weren't you made like all the other black mages? How can you have a grandpa if you were just "poofed" into the world like that?" She threw up her hands to give her euphamism life, but Vivi seemed to shrink, to wither.

"I can still have a grandpa…" he trailed off.

Vivi was staring down at his reflection now. The only thing that he could see clearly were his eyes, flashing back at him in luminescent shades of amber. The rest of him had melted into the blackness of the water, the outline of his oversized, patchy hat barely visible. A fish, perhaps lonesome, broke the surface, and his darker twin became blurry, then was lost to the ripples.

Faded away, like he would one day, perhaps in a couple of seconds, maybe in a couple of minutes, weeks, years… Eyes that burned out like the fireflies kept too long under glass, like the blank, mindless eyes of his brothers on the cargo ship, gone to him forever. That memory of innocent sacrafice, although committed for him countless times by his friends, always burned the brightest , like the north star… The one that glimmered in his memory the most. He could never forget.

Eiko saw how his head hung, sullen like a rag doll. She didn't want him to look like a doll, not ever. She felt bad; her grandfather had always been right when he said that she should put both feet in her mouth, funny as that sounded back then.

"Awe, well sure ya can, Vivi. I was just curious on how you got him, is all."

"He saved me." He said this suddenly, confidently.

"Saved you? From what, mist monsters?"

"Kind of…I guess you could say he woke me up. He said I had a piece of my eggshell on my hat.

"Oh, that's right. Black mages are born from eggs."

Eiko could not imagine Vivi hatching like a chocobo from an egg. Zindane had told her about all the eggs at the factory in Dali, and it had made her kind of sad. But to think of Vivi being laid like a little chick was funny. She giggled, and Vivi looked up at her slowly.

"What's so funny?" He sounded unsure of himself, not wanting to feel so abnormal, so un-human.

"Oh Vivi! I can just imagine you bursting out of an egg like a bird or something, squawking or eating worms or something like that!"

At that, the little mage had to give himself over and giggle along with her. Eiko also laughed more than anybody he knew, but was just as quick to pout or to boss you around, too. He supposed it was because she was a little girl. But weren't little girls supposed to always smile and act all coy?

"Hee-hee… We black mages don't eat worms!"

It was quiet again for a while. Both of them were lying on their backs now, watching one of their fireflies chasing after the other relentlessly, the latter letting it's counterpart catch up to it gradually, almost teasingly. Vivi knew what they were doing, he had seen it before with the frogs in the Qu Marsh. They were going to become mates and have children. (But as to how they did that, well, that was still unknown.)

Zindane had told him once that girls liked the chase, that they liked to be caught. He still didn't understand why you would want to let someone catch you.

_If ya wanna get the girl, Vivi, ya gotta remember that she's gonna play hard to get._

He pondered this mystery of life absentmindedly. Vivi never really thought about girls. He guessed some of them were supposed to be pretty, like Dagger when she had a gown on or flowers in her hair or something feminine like that. Why was Zindane so obsessed with girls? Maybe it was because they didn't run away from Zindane like they did him. Maybe girls thought that he was weird or scary.

"Hey Vivi?"

"Yeah, Eiko?" He awkwardly turned his cumbersome, hat-laden head towards her, making out the glint of her large child's eyes. Vivi was pretty sure that Eiko was a girl, even though she didn't act like one.

"Do you remember being born?"

Suddenly, all thoughts of the evening evaporated in his head. He had heard of this feeling of melancholy nostalgia, this thing some called deja-vu. It felt to him as though he was suddenly transported to some far away dreamland of milkless infancy.

A plane engine, whir-whirring. A heart-beat, a crash, a voice…

_The prototype-_

"I mean, when you hatched, weren't you the way you are now, kind of grown-up? Kind of already made?"

_What is matter boy-_

_Thuh-thump, thuh-thump_

Eiko paused, choosing those words carefully for her sensitive friend.

"Then wouldn't you remember what it was like?"

_you not talk?-_

_Is ready-_

_THUH-THUMP, THUH-THUMP_

But Vivi was only half listening.

"Being born, I mean… Or were you not, um, "awake" yet?" She had to try out the word awake, too strange and alien for her tongue , for Vivi, who was so very wide awake now and liked to run and play with her like any human boy.

_You will be-_

_Do you-_

_My greatest-_

_WARNING, WARNING, CHECK PRESSURE GUAGES_

_THUH-THUMP, THUH-THUMP, THUH-THUMP_

But now he was silent as an autumn puff-ball, staring thru her as though she was transparent, a ghost.

_Oh no we're gonna-_

_have name?-_

_CRASH WE'RE LOSING SOME!_

_creation the ringleader my little one-_

Then he whispered, sounding half-asleep and searching, as if he were trying to mediatate and reach some sort of enlightenment.

"I remember how dark it was… And I remember falling."

_WORTHLESS HAS A GLITCH_

_I take you-_

_THROW IT AWAY-_

_home with me-_

"Falling?"

"Uh-huh… I remember falling from the sky."

"Hey! Hey, Vivi! What's the matter?" The little mage looked like he was going to pass right out. She shook him gently.

_Your name-_

_Thuh-thump, thuh-thump_

_now Vivi-_

He closed his eyes.

"Vivi!"

Oh yes, he could remember now.


End file.
